Symbolism in fiction

Lyra Jean · Feb 18, 2012

I ran across this graphic on FB:

300154_261614947203170_204950246202974_895725_224305396_n.jpg

It made me think, are there things in your writing that you think readers or English teachers think have a certain meaning but when you were writing it has no special meaning at all.

For example: In an unpublished and trunked short story I had a character take shelter in a church during a snowstorm. He accidentally came across the church as it was night time and couldn't see a thing and bumped into the corner of the building.

I could see people putting a religious light on it and saying it was God or whatever saving him from certain death. When I was writing it it just seemed the most plausible. I came up with it I remembered when my mom lived in North Carolina and it had a latch lock in case someone came upon the house during a snowstorm they could come inside to get out of the storm and you know not die. A church, well it's a church and it not being locked and considered a refuge made more sense than someone's house.

Orianna2000 · Feb 18, 2012

Thank you! I hated being forced to analyze everything we read in Literature class, to find all the meanings and symbolism. It's like, just let me relax and enjoy the story for what it's worth, at face value. Now people have read unintended symbolism into things I've written and I sit there scratching my head, because I didn't intend any of it. When I do use symbolism, it's clear and there's no mistaking it. Anything else is coincidence.

Nymtoc · Feb 18, 2012

People always see things in fiction that the author did not intend. I once got a very complimentary letter about a story I had published, and it was obvious that the letter writer had read into the story meanings that I did not even know were there.

In general, just write and let the symbols take care of themselves.

Todd Young · Feb 18, 2012

I often find meanings in my writing that I didn't put there intentionally, but are nevertheless valid.

blacbird · Feb 18, 2012

Nymtoc said:
People always see things in fiction that the author did not intend.

This. I once had a critiquer drift off into a really negative response to a work in which I started with two male characters, one of whom was named "Honey", assuming it was a novel about a gay relationship, and disappointed when it didn't go there. Mostly I pay attention to critiques, but once in a while somebody is an idiot.

Nymtoc said:
In general, just write and let the symbols take care of themselves.

This, exactly.

caw

kuwisdelu · Feb 18, 2012

I'm a proponent of Death of the Author.

It doesn't matter whether the author intended something or not. It only matters if it's in the text.

Once it's written and sent into the world, the author is just another reader, and his or her interpretation is no more valid than any other reader's. And likewise, any interpretation that can be supported by the text is valid, whether or not the author intended it or not.

IMO, authors should never attempt to interpret their own work. Publicly, at least.

gothicangel · Feb 19, 2012

I have a Lit degree, and that made me LOL.

Sometimes the academics do read into these things too deeply [i.e psycho-analysis of Gothic tropes.] Sometimes it is legit. George Eliot and Thomas Hardy had very specific ideas about their work. Angela Carter set out write a feminist, post-modern version of Red Riding Hood in her short story 'The Company of Wolves.' Anne Rice wrote Interview With A Vampire after the death of her young daughter. The film The Artist says more about Hollywood in 2012, than it does about 1929.

Write from the heart, and let the reader decide what you meant.

Buffysquirrel · Feb 19, 2012

Once you let the work into the hands of the readers, you cease to control it. They'll decide what to read into it. We should worry if all anyone gets from our writing is the literal text.

jdwhitelaw · Feb 19, 2012

Buffysquirrel said:
Once you let the work into the hands of the readers, you cease to control it. They'll decide what to read into it. We should worry if all anyone gets from our writing is the literal text.

I quite agree.

I think, like most things in life, writing is something that time can be spent far too long on. I remember being in a literature class in 2nd year at University going over the complications and illicit theological implications of medieval Scottish poetry and thinking, blimey were these amateur monks really going for this or simply working on the whim of their masters.

From my own experience, I think it can be a daunting but ultimately rewarding task to add deliberate symbolism but ultimately it is up to the reader to either get it or not.

Personally I enjoy symbolism in all of its forms. Most of my work is heavily drenched in the stuff.

jeffo20 · Feb 19, 2012

In 9th grade, everything we read, according to my teacher, was about 'man's inhumanity to man.' It was a depressing year.

What Kuwisdelu says is true. Essentially, I can write something that means something to me, where maybe I'm going for some deliberate symbolism, but if you don't see it that way, if you see it some other way, how can I tell you you're wrong? All I could say is that it wasn't what I intended.

I've also seen songwriters get themselves in a twist over this, too. Everyone from Roger Waters to Avril Lavigne. It comes with the territory.

Orchestra · Feb 19, 2012

I understand that the infographic is meant to be amusing, but as someone who is actually trained in literary analysis an interpretation, I find it rather misleading. After Barthes, no serious critical reading can honestly concern itself with the question "But is this what the author really meant?" and stop there. While most scholars I know don't take quite as strict a position as kuwisdelu above, it is generally agreed that the author has no special authority over the meanings in his or her work.

That said, all literary works are full of symbolism. It's just how people read books. You read about an aplle orchard, your mind fires up an image of the one you saw as a kid. You read about gloomy weather, you might think of depression and hopelessness. You read about and old tree leaning against a younger tree and get a sense of growth, aging and how much you are afraid of getting old and helpless – or perhaps that image is strangely conforting to you.

And mind you, not all of these associations are shared by all or even consciously understood. Some of it is culturally pre-programmed and obvious (heart—love, lion—bravery), some of it is deeply personal and highly subconscious.

Being able to use these symbolic associations thoughtfully and purposefully is a terriffic skill for a writer to master as it can greatly strengthen a story's impact on the reader. But if you have any instinctive knowledge of how literature works, you'll end up creating ample opportunity for associations in any case. So don't worry about it too much.

gothicangel · Feb 19, 2012

jdwhitelaw said:
I think, like most things in life, writing is something that time can be spent far too long on. I remember being in a literature class in 2nd year at University going over the complications and illicit theological implications of medieval Scottish poetry and thinking, blimey were these amateur monks really going for this or simply working on the whim of their masters.

I'm now having flashbacks of lectures on The Kingis Quair and the Makars.

randi.lee · Feb 19, 2012

It's all about perception. If someone wants it [symbol] to be there badly enough, it's there.

robjvargas · Feb 19, 2012

Buffysquirrel said:
Once you let the work into the hands of the readers, you cease to control it. They'll decide what to read into it. We should worry if all anyone gets from our writing is the literal text.

I don't *quite* agree. But neither do I fully disagree.

A reader is going to take from a work whatever that reader takes from it.

But that doesn't negate what I put in as the author. The truth (so to speak) that I put into a work doesn't go away just because other readers, or even all readers, don't see it.

Herstory · Feb 19, 2012

I agree completely with Orchestra. Besides, what's wrong with readers seeing things in your work that you didn't intend? Some of the interpretations readers/English teachers come up with can seem silly, but if your work ends up being discussed in an English class somewhere, how is that a bad thing?

As an author, I wouldn't have a problem with people reading things into my work that I never thought of/intended unless they were trying to match the text to personal events in my life. I have a poet friend who is frustrated when people think she is the first-person speaker in her poems. Why can't she play with different voices and personas?

The bottom line to me is that a work of art always means more than its creator intended. Why limit its meanings?

jdwhitelaw · Feb 19, 2012

gothicangel said:
I'm now having flashbacks of lectures on The Kingis Quair and the Makars.

Rock n Roll. It was strangely inspiring to be crammed into the Law department's lecture "theatres"

Oh summer days.

scarletpeaches · Feb 19, 2012

If anyone has the right to interpret the work, the person who wrote it does. If someone tells me I intended such-and-such in my book and I know they're wrong, you're damn right I'll tell them. I won't stand back and let some geekspod tell me what I meant in my book.

RichardGarfinkle · Feb 19, 2012

I have a couple of problems with the symbolism premise of a fair amount of lit crit. Symbols are actually pretty crude and blatant. Writing, particularly novel writing involves sophisticated interplay of words to create much higher order structures than the simple A means B of symbolism.

The 'it belongs to the reader now' theory is basically fine, except if the reader or a critic imputes the meaning they read into it as the meaning I wrote. They can't have it both ways. If they are trying to read my mind from a book I wrote, they can't say the author is no longer involved in the book.

backslashbaby · Feb 19, 2012

I love it when people see the story in their own way. I try to play on that in many stories, which I got into trying after reading The Turn of the Screw. It's hard to do, but some readers really enjoy it.

That's not to say that a straight take isn't awesome. I'm as entertained as anyone by a good story that's just what it says on the surface. (I'm just not as good at writing straight, because my cool ideas are rarely with the completely normal parts of things.)

Buffysquirrel · Feb 19, 2012

robjvargas said:
But that doesn't negate what I put in as the author. The truth (so to speak) that I put into a work doesn't go away just because other readers, or even all readers, don't see it.

I always think of the reading of a book taking place in a space between author and reader, where they both bring to it what they bring. It fascinates me, tbh, that space.

jaksen · Feb 19, 2012

A well-known author once sat in the back of a lecture hall while the instructor and students were discussing one of his novels.

His comment later to a friend: "I never knew I wrote all that!"

I had a teacher-friend who used to pull apart my short stories. It was easier sometimes to say yeah, that character is my dad and oh yes, I always felt like a loner and blah blah...

As long as they read it, like it and pay for it, I'm happy.

tmesis · Feb 19, 2012

kuwisdelu said:
I'm a proponent of Death of the Author.

It doesn't matter whether the author intended something or not. It only matters if it's in the text.

Yes, I swing this way too. Who cares about the author? When I examine a text my aim is not to discover their opinion; my aim is to examine the text and draw interesting meanings from it.

scarletpeaches · Feb 19, 2012

Yeah, God forbid the author should tell you what s/he intended. What do they know?

tmesis · Feb 19, 2012

scarletpeaches said:
Yeah, God forbid the author should tell you what s/he intended. What do they know?

The point is that it's irrelevant. The book is already out there; the author's already said their thing, and if they've done it well then the reader will understand it. But closer examinations, regardless of author intent, are interesting in themselves. They have nothing to do with what's true or false in the author's opinion. It's what's interesting that matters.

dawinsor · Feb 19, 2012

Having listened to a lot of students tell me what they intended their papers to say, I'm here to tell you that the author's intention does not necessarily connect to the words on the page.

And more seriously, I think we often write from feelings, beliefs, and associations that we don't consciously access while writing.

Symbolism in fiction

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